


splitting blood read windows in my heart

by Niki



Series: Fear of Ghosts [6]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Control Ending, M/M, Which Counts as Character Death really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kaidan – the humanity – all of the galaxy could be safe, forever, if only he gave up the one thing he never paid much attention to anyway, his humanity.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	splitting blood read windows in my heart

“All my memories?” Shepard asked the Catalyst in the shape of the damn kid that kept haunting him. 

“All your memories,” it confirmed. “But none of the emotions that go with them.”

He looked at the machine in front of him, holding Kaidan's tags in his fist, pressing down so hard that the raised writing formed grooves in his skin. Kaidan's name forever engraved in him, he could live with that.

Faced with the choice, there was only one he could even think of. The Illusive Bastard, indoctrinated as he was, was right on one thing. You did not destroy what you could utilise. The Reapers as their defence, no one could threaten the galaxy again. Even if the Leviathan bastards decided to start trouble. Even if there was something else lurking in the dark space, beyond the reach of the relays.

Kaidan – the humanity – all of the galaxy could be safe, forever, if only he gave up the one thing he never paid much attention to anyway, his humanity. 

“Remember this, you bastard,” he muttered, opening his hand to look at the tags. “Remember this, remember him, and keep. Him. Safe.”

He put the tags back around his neck, and moved decisively to the machine, grabbing the pylons that seemed charged with lightning, and despite the pain he held on, one name on his mind.

He could feel it, could feel his whole self coming apart, and concentrated on his final thought until he couldn't remember why, couldn't understand the meaning of the word, and then...

Then everything was different. 

\- - -

The Reapers weren't destroyed, even though the Crucible had gone off. They just... stopped. The Reapers themselves, the ground troops, everything. And then they spoke.

“I am Shepard. I am your protector.”

When the galaxy realised what the Crucible had done, what Shepard had done to keep them safe... there was a mixed reaction. Some were still distrustful of the ancient machines, but they were endlessly, inhumanly patient.

They helped rebuild what had been destroyed, they helped in what ever they could, and they patrolled the edges of the galaxy, forever vigilant, forever waiting. 

Saren had used Sovereign as a ship. Kaidan wondered if indoctrination was still a problem now that Shepard was the consciousness ruling the machine race. He wondered if he should worry. If he should care. 

He lived aboard the Reaper that had been Harbinger. He lived in what was now all Shepard. The ship moved around him, gave him everything he needed. 

Except human touch.

“A machine cannot love,” he had said when Shepard spoke through Harbinger's mouth.

“If EDI can learn, why not I?” it – he – had asked. “I remember love. I remember you. I saved the world for you. Does that count for something?”

“Maybe.”

“A definite maybe?”

“That depends. Where in the hell are my tags, you bloody thief?”


End file.
